He gave her a square of chocolate—good chocolate—and when she tasted it she actually shed tears. Jesus, she was losing all control. All control. Was the flesh going to win? It was getting harder to disentangle herself from it. The triumphant, righteous niffin in her shrieked defiance. She thought of flying, of plunging into the earth and flying again, of burning things, making them hurt the way she hurt, showing them how glorious the pain was. She shuddered.

“Why did you come here?” he said.

“To kill you.” She said it without hesitating, because it was true.

“No. You came here so I could save you.”

She laughed—yes, that sick wicked niffin laugh, she still had it. She loved it. But she couldn’t let the food alone either. They were forcing her, making her give it up.

“I’m going to make my new body fat,” she said. “I’m going to eat until it is morbidly obese and I die.”

“You can if you want to. Here.”

A noise. What was it? Her body seethed with pleasure at it. He had opened a cold, sweating bottle of champagne and was pouring some into a wineglass.

“This is hardly fair,” she said.

“I never said it was.”

“You want me to drink champagne out of a wineglass? You’ve gone downhill, Quentin Coldwater.” Where were these words coming from?

“I’ve adjusted my priorities.”

When she had drunk it, sitting up in bed, taking quick little sips like a child taking her medicine, she burped loudly.

“That might be my favorite part,” she said. “Is this all you have?”

“That’s all I have.”

“No, it’s not,” she said.

Abruptly, awkwardly, like an inexperienced schoolgirl, she kissed him. She did it roughly and hard, without knowing she was going to do it. She leaned forward and mashed her lips against his, felt a tooth grind into her lip, tasted blood. As she did something warmed and melted between her legs. She shoved her tongue into his mouth, let him taste the champagne. The dike that kept her mind separate from her body was leaking in a hundred places. Somewhere far away her glass smashed on the floor.

She wanted him. She was remembering things—afternoons upstairs at the Cottage, in the stifling heat. He was lean and strong, stronger than he used to be, and she wanted him.

“Show me, Quentin.” She ordered him. “Show me what bodies are for.”

She was unbuttoning his shirt, but clumsily. She’d forgotten how. He trapped her hands.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. Too soon.”

“Too soon?” She grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him again. His stubble scraped her. She smelled him; it wasn’t like bacon, but it was still good. “You do this to me and then you tell me it’s too soon?”